Jupiter swirling clouds or an artist’s palette? NASA
Sometimes people come into your life just to teach you how to let go.” – Unknown
I believe the TWW community is an excellent place to share our thoughts on how authoritarian churches attempt to control those coming under their umbrella of membership. I have written some posts that show the church membership covenant is a legal contract. I have also written about how churches use that contract to unfairly discipline members and will even retroactively discipline members who do not resign in a particular way as outlined in the covenant. This post, Church Membership Covenants – Legal Contracts that are NOT Biblical!, contains posts I’ve written on the subject, which I believe will help parse out this post published on the Christianity Today website: Ghosted Again. Pastors Respond to Disappearing Congregants: Church leaders seek fresh ways to prevent “backdoor exits” and adapt to shifting membership. I have subscribed to CT for decades and find many of their articles thought-provoking and informative. Sometimes, they present a story that doesn’t ask all the needed questions.
I get ghosting. It has happened to me, and I have also ghosted others. It is often better to tell someone that “we are going our separate ways,” but in some circumstances, it is better not to do so. I think of the Anglican church whose pastor wrote us a note that we “could now join the church” after my husband had a one-on-one with our former SBC pastor, basically telling him not to interfere with our ability to join a church. The Anglican pastor treated us poorly, and I knew he could figure out why we wouldn’t step foot in his church. We didn’t answer him.
In the CT post, pastors discussed how hard it was to deal with people disappearing without saying a word. Many claimed it was due to COVID. Others thought it was due to online services that many continued after COVID. The pastors had no idea if a member was watching online.
You can leave a church at any time, and you do NOT have to have the church’s permission, no matter what they say.
Here is what the TWW post said.
Ghosting the church
1. Church discipline, essential doctrines, and leaving the church are tied together.
CT demonstrated my concern in the first two paragraphs of the article. Church discipline and “leaving a church” is spelled out upfront in their example of Cross City Church.
The membership packet for new congregants at Cross City Church in Columbus, Ohio, is pretty straightforward. There’s a section enumerating the church’s “essential doctrines,” including creedal beliefs like the Trinity and the saving work of Jesus on the cross. There’s a section about church leadership and discipline, explaining the church’s process when a member sins.
And there’s a curious section under membership, “How to Be Sent Out or Leave the Church”:
There are many ways in which God calls His children out of one spiritual family into another. Physical moving, leading to a new mission and disagreement are all ways in which He moves His children. All these may happen without sin and with a full and righteous leading of the Spirit. … We pray and ask the members of Cross City to be prayerful, honest and communicate concerns, offenses, hopes, ideas and convictions in an early fashion, rather than allowing them to fester in isolation and cause division, hurt, or other ungodly effects within God’s family.
2. Two pastors wanted to find a way to discourage ghosting by trying to figure out why people leave.
I understand this point. If a church truly wants to know why people leave without putting pressure on them, it can help it face its problems. It can also help a church understand that people have different needs, and sometimes a church can’t meet those needs,
If you ignore departures, you risk overlooking potential problems in the church that prompted people to leave.
(Many pastors are burdened to reach out to leavers, whether to make sure the church didn’t cause harm o )
3. Some pastors could see this as an opportunity to apply church discipline.
Read the wording in this quote.
Many pastors are burdened to reach out to leavers, whether (to make sure the church didn’t cause harm) or to extend a shepherd’s crook to the wayward, just as the shepherd in Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep in Matthew 18 left his 99 to seek the one that “wandered off.”
Here’s where it can become abusive as it did in Todd Wilhelm’s leaving of a 9Marx church in Dubai (John Folmar is pastor.) Todd discovered that this church (and 9 Marx) pushed CJ Mahaney’s materials and invited him to speak. Todd decided to leave, knowing he could not support the church in this endeavor. Right up to this point, Todd was in good standing. Suddenly this changed, and they put him under what I call “retroactive church discipline.” They claimed he needed to join another church immediately (although I think they were miffed that he left and used that as a good excuse.) Todd said he would take his time checking out churches before joining another like that church. He was put on a “membership care” list, where he stayed while fighting to have his name removed.
4. Why sign a membership contract when you don’t know what kind of pastor you get?
Frankly, some people spend more time figuring out what washing machine to buy than they do figuring out what kind of church they join. That can lead to problems. Few churches are willing to define, apriori, what they will and will not discipline. They lump it under “we do church discipline.” Ask questions. What does this church discipline? Can I leave whenever I want, or do I need “permission” from the leaders? If possible, attend without signing that contract.
5. Megachurches don’t know their people.
As a former member of several megachurches, I am thrilled to be part of a church that knows my name. Not only do they pray for members by name during the worship service, but every year they have a remembrance service, recognizing those who have died in the past year. Each name is read and is followed by the sound of a bell. It is quite moving.
Before joining such a church, ensure you understand how they are “following up” on those who leave.
For pastors of megachurches, reaching out to ghosters might sometimes mean contacting people they’ve never really gotten to know. At Concord Church, Carter said he hasn’t fully implemented a good system to address what he calls the church’s “backdoor” exits. Part of his challenge as the pastor of a 2,500-attender church is recognizing
when someone leaves.
6. Some pastors seem to believe that everyone who leaves needs guidance from their church family.
In my case, I was a member of a megachurch in Dallas, Bent Tree Church, where I developed close relationships with all the pastors and elders. When it came time to leave (we were coming back to North Carolina), I talked with everyone, sometimes with tears, saying “goodbye.” Contrast that with another Bible church when we knew of the authoritarian leadership and wanted to get out quickly.
Now, imagine attending a 10,000-member church where relationships were hard to form. Do they need church guidance? The church doesn’t know them and, this is difficult to say, they don’t care. The members would have told them if the church cared and had developed relationships with those members. Many megachurches are a hot mess when it comes to this.
Burns said part of what makes ghosting so deeply hurtful for pastors is that it means those who left secretly—even for understandable reasons like starting a new job or moving away—chose to do it without prayer and guidance from their church family.
7. Hold your church members “loosely.”
This pastor seemed to get it. In my current church, we sat there for over two years before we joined. The pastors got to know our names and would be most pleasant, never beating us over the head to “join the church.” I so appreciated their kindness and willingness to leave us alone that we finally reached the point where we wanted to be part of this church.
Housaye said when pastors don’t hold their congregants “loosely” enough—when they cling to church growth and demand loyalty from members—they unwittingly encourage ghosting.
“If people are going to be loyal, they tend to be more loyal if they realize they’re there by choice and not by manipulation,” DelHousaye said. “We made it so that you didn’t have to be afraid to tell people you were leaving,” he said of his “come, grow, go” philosophy.
…Burns in Columbus is trying to create a similar culture in his small Ohio congregation. “You should be able to trust that the church is not desperate to have you,” he said. “Otherwise, you shouldn’t be going to that church.”
The key for each pastor to create such a culture, DelHousaye said, is remembering whose church it is—not the pastor’s.
8. Small groups can be one way to establish a connection but beware.
Some small groups function in an authoritarian manner with the blessing of the pastors. There are admirals in rowboats in any situation where a person can feed his inner control freak. There is one church in Dallas where the small group is given the task of telling a person not to leave for a new job or reviewing each person’s finances to ensure they are tithing. However, I have been a member of some wonderful small groups that have supported me through difficult times. Just be smart. Be cautious anytime you join a small group or a church.
Carter in Dallas said his strategy to prevent ghosting is to encourage deep connection: “Here’s the deal. If somebody is worshiping, if they’re giving, if they’re serving, if they’re in a small group, the likelihood of their ghosting is low.”
9. Transience can be a strength.
“We’ve been given this opportunity to give people Christ, to have them experience biblical community,” he said. “We’re given this short period of time, and we don’t know how long that’s going to be. So we really have learned to try to maximize that opportunity as much as we can.”
After we left Sov Grace, we were asked to join our new church. I was determined to never do anything unbiblical again. If it wasn’t in the Bible, do not impose it upon me was and is my mantra. I met with the pastor and kindly explained that joining a church is not a biblical precedent. I told him that my yes is a yes, and my no is a no. He was fine but he explained that I wouldn’t be allowed to be in leadership or to vote on member issues. I was fine with that. Their loss. Never again.
I left three church congregations as an adult. The first turned out not to be a good fit for me. Never heard a word from anyone at that church when I left.. The second was a small church I really enjoyed and they mentored my wife and I when we married. Many tears were shed when we said good bye and we got some follow up after we left.The third church was a mistake. We were heavily involved there with a DivorceCare ministry, but ended up leaving after witnessing authoritarian behavior political grandstanding and theological purity. Two months after we left I emailed the lead pastor and told him we moved to another church. He wanted me to come sit in his office to discuss it. Nope, how about a local coffee shop?
Crickets!
I was sorry he did not agree to meet on my terms. I had some things to say.
There’s another reason why believers are leaving some churches. Pure and simple, the Gospel is not being preached! Another gospel, which is not ‘the’ Gospel has taken over the pulpit. I can take you to churches in my area this Sunday where the name of Jesus will barely be mentioned, if at all … where His ministry, death, resurrection, and life within us are secondary to the teachings and traditions of men … where a pursuit of holiness is not even on the agenda. The hoopla served up in some corners of the American church is more about being culturally-relevant than relevant to the Kingdom of Heaven on earth in the here and now.
This is an excellent post, Dee. Your point by point analysis prokes thought and discourse. I’m looking forward to reading the comments over the weekend. Nice to have a robust topic over the weekend.
About church population numbers: if a pastor is mainly concerned with his paycheck, maybe he needs a new career.
provokes …
LOL, maybe “prokes” is the term, shortened.
To Max’s point:
https://twitter.com/ThouArtTheMan/status/1591243032728203264?s=20&t=wi_NVfxUjMsYR4-_FBq8VQ
Loren Haas,
You know my rule. Never, ever meet with a not-so-nice pastor alone in an office. They’ll attack you and then deny it.
Todd Wilhelm,
“Join the party at the Saddleback Corporation! Evangelicalism continues its freefall.”
I’m sure that “Join the party” was not on the lips of the early church! How far we’ve fallen from the way, the truth and the life. After 2,000 years, we should be doing better than this.
“pastor” in name only … there has been an outbreak of those in the American church, reaching pandemic proportion
Somewhereintime,
Will they let you work on the nursery? Will they accept your money?
dee,
Oh, I learned that one early on in this church. After I mentioned in a small men’s group that I accepted an old earth and evolution I got “reported”. I was invited into a pastors office where he told me evolution is a “dying theory” and rapidly being discarded. An hour later I vowed to never go back in an office there again.
It’s probably never a good idea to go into a meeting with your pastor alone. He will likely have one of his underlings with him. I would take a friend, not my wife, and also ask them if they had any objections to me recording the meeting. They will probably have objections. Better yet, if you are in a one-party consent state, such as I am, just record the meeting without asking for their permission.
I am speaking of the 9Marx, narcissistic-type pastors. There are still some honest pastors out there whom I would trust, but those types are few and far between and they aren’t the type who call you into meetings to scream, threaten and chastise you.
Iguanas love to eat crickets.
Down in the fabled OC (orange county, CA).
Big bucks, big BMWs, and even bigger egos.
Loren Haas,
I wonder what would happen to me if I chanced into a ‘progressive’ church men’s group and they found out that I don’t believe in evolution, and that the difference between millimeters and parsecs is not as cut and dried as we think it is.
Muff Potter,
“…evolution, and that the difference between millimeters and parsecs is not as cut and dried as we think it is.”
++++++++++++
….have time to explain the significance?
(right-brained-brilliant-person-or-so-i-like-to-think-but-moron-in-other-ways, here– need help connecting the dots)
I know from experience that some churches do not consider you Christian if you adhere to the theory of evolution or if you were baptized as an infant.
Turns out they were right so who knows?
It’s been said before – – it’s like a Hotel California.
So very incredible and sad that there are men out there who call themselves shepherds of the flock who feel the need to have such control over peoples’ lives and treat them so abominably. I’m surprised there aren’t many more souls leaving the church.
What a friend we have in Jesus.
The “Dones” are probably the largest growing Christian population in America. Done with counterfeit church, but not done with genuine Jesus.
A church membership contract basically guarantees income come hades or high water or pastor scandal for the beggar pastor and his whims (may include a private plane + pilot or the desired estate for his wife) out of the earned wages of each actual real job working church member with an actual working person responsible budget. Grifters (pastors and wives and kids) on the shoulders of working people. No thank you.
No, not biblical. At all.
Jesus’s disciples were told to travel sharing the gospel; eventually Paul travelled ministering to local churches. They were to be welcomed with room and board for a few days only, nothing more and never longer. Biblical. No estates, planes, vacations, etc., paid for by church donors. Pastors could have real jobs and earn those accoutrements for themselves and their families like everyone else. Pastoring is NOT a fundraising profession. Paul did fundraising for widows, orphans, and others who suffered incidentally (perhaps hurricane relief, etc.). No Disciple was a fundraiser for their own support or ministry.
Personally, I think what Joni Eareckson Tada does may be for a good cause. She certainly is no Ravi Zacharias. She provides wheelchairs and limited but strategic care for the disabled. Her Netherlands branch is assisting Ukrainians that flee. Disabled Ukrainians, that is. But her work is a nonprofit that is not a church and she is not a pastor.
Max,
Agreed, also the most maligned
Sad, isn’t it. “Honest” and “pastor” should go together. Everyone who holds that title should be a man of God, with the character of Christ, honest and trustworthy to the bone. If they don’t have these qualities, they aren’t truly a pastor.
After 70+ years of dealing with counterfeit religion and cheap grace here and there, I joined the Done ranks when New Calvinism with its aberrant belief and practice swept into SBC. That was the last straw for me. I would truly love to be part of a healthy Body of Christ again, but finding such a gathering in my area is like looking for a needle in a haystack, a rare & endangered species, a treasure buried in a field.
Church folks wonder what happened to ole Max, not sharing my perspective on the condition of the American church (no Jesus), and speak spitefully of my decision to depart from them while they still enjoy the fun and fellowship and even endure ungodly authoritarian leaders.
The way I see it, a believer is faced with balancing a tension between two Scriptures: “Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together” vs. “Come out from her and be not a partaker of her sins.” The latter drove me from the harlot church in America.
> in the CT post, pastors discussed how hard it was to deal with people disappearing without saying a word.
IMO, the Scriptures provide a basis for walking away without explanation:
Proverbs 26:4-5 (ESV)
4 Answer not a fool according to his folly,
lest you be like him yourself.
5 Answer a fool according to his folly,
lest he be wise in his own eyes.
—
There are times when speaking will do no good — it will only provide opportunity for one’s interlocutor to try to manipulate you — and the wisest path is to perceive the danger and seek refuge through flight.
It doesn’t seem to occur to leaders who don’t understand why they are losing people that they may have created the conditions which lead people to believe that explanations would be pointless.
I can only write as a woman, but mainliners tend to live and let live. Every congregation and prayer group I’ve belonged to has had people with a range of beliefs. I’ve run into Quiverfull folks in a group that also had progressives (and ordained women). We retained our opinions and got along.
When membershp is truly voluntary, people come and go as they choose, sometimes over theological disagreements or even schsm, and sometimes for other reasons.
Samuel Conner,
Great comment.
Yours too, Max
I wonder if the Dones will eventually coalesce into a new generation of independent churches.
(And as Entropy sets in with age, make the same mistakes that result in another generation of Dones.)
Lone-ranger Churches of One have a limited lifespan and cut you off from community.
Mainlines are mellower.
They have a history, a track record, they don’t have to always reinvent the wheel like some new startup without established precedent. They don’t have to continually prove themselves The Only True Church from 33 AD.
Think of the Mainlines as older adults (“grown-ups” that can get set in their ways) and the Megas and Fellowships and Televangelists as screaming toddlers (who can lock into that and never grow up).
One possibility is they have NO life outside of their church life.
No external anchor to provide a Reality Check.
That’s a good way of putting it.
Takes one to know one. They find their leader.
You may or may not be right, the demographics indicate that people are really done.
Jesus, genuine or otherwise, doesn’t seem too broken up with my apostasy. Bad cell reception maybe?
You learned your Christianity somewhere. There’s no magical line to Jesus otherwise Indonesia would not be the largest Muslim country on earth.
I was raised in common sense liturgical Christian household, and after my sojourn into Evangelicalism, I definitely would be more at home there. Doing good, no flash bang overwrought emotionalism, no snide comments regarding other faiths or denominations.
Whatever the tradition, I think it’s treadmill that ruins it, the adherence to an abhorrent bronze age culture (biblical literalism).
It may be the contemplative traditions that take Christianity into the future.
Kindness and acceptance.
Several years ago in Sunday School class I referred to John Stott’s introduction to his book Basic Christianity, published about 50 years ago, and which helped me enormously in my early walk with Christ. Stott said that young people of that day were “hostile to the Church, friendly to Jesus Christ.” I said that could be true of a lot of people today, and I meant that as a sign of hope. The pastor, who was not the class leader but a participant as I was, insisted that “since the Church is the bride of Christ, to be hostile to the Church IS to be hostile to Christ himself.”
I think this is a large part of the problem. Pastors can’t see what churches are doing wrong. And, in the “what I should have said” department, I might have countered with, “But when the Bride of Christ starts acting like the Whore of Babylon, is it a denial of Christ to be hostile to that?”
biblical vs biblical literalism vs Bible reading, and then there’s the Holy Spirit … and everything the good book says about the Holy Spirit.
What is biblical literalism, anyway?
Strip words on paper from context, from relationship?
Literalism in what language? Hebrew? English? King James English?
As a theology professor once said, “Everyone does their own theology,” so everyone does their own Bible reading. Holy Spirit plays his part.
The Demon Locust Plague of Revelation Literally and Plainly meaning helicopter gunships with chemical-weapon “stingers” piloted by long-haired bearded Hippies, of course.
A Checklist of One-Verse Verbal Component Spells.
Especially the Laws from Leviticus demanding DEATH! DEATH! DEATH!
“GAWD HATH SAID! WORD FOR WORD!”
The language God dictated the Bible word-for-word, of course.
Of which all other “Bibles” are Imperfect “Translations”:
1611 Kynge Jaymes Englyshe.
If invited to the conversation.
Moreover, in the theories and research of Mikhail Bakhtin and Lev Vygotsky, reading takes place as a dialogue.
The biblical literalists bring to mind the practice of dropping a fish down a duck’s neck with no process.
It was a dig at the god of ‘science’.
Science is nothing more than a sophisticated measuring scheme that bases ‘best guess’ conclusions on said measuring scheme(s), hence the millimeters and parsecs crack.
There was a time when Geocentrism (planets and stars revolve around Earth) had iron-clad Math rigor. But we now know that it was dreadfully wrong.
And yes, you are a brilliant person, right and left brained has zero to do with it.
Sometimes I wonder how is it that a guy who doesn’t actually hold a wage-earning job doing real work that actually accomplishes something, has so much to say to AND require of, people who are in the game, working in the world.
Pastors seem to basically be marketing a brand to bring in donations from working people, for their livelihood, their paycheck, their projects, their planes, their plantations, their playing around, their patriarchy, etc.
The Gospel is never sold; it’s not for sale. The Body of Christ is not of grifters. Leadership is not based on donations from wage-earners, particularly when contracts, strong-arming, bullying, PPP loans, misogyny, etc., are involved. The gifts (pastoring is one of eighteen gifts) of the Holy Spirit to the Body of Christ are never money based; the Holy Spirit cannot be bought. Gifts. Pastoring is a GIFT of the Holy Spirit to the Body of Christ. A gift is given, never paid for. Duh.
The ancient Didache warns about teachers like this. It calls it “trafficking upon Christ.”
After 70+ years of doing church in America and encountering numerous folks who carried the title “Pastor”, I can count on one hand those who were gifted for that office. The others “went into the ministry” for various reasons, but not as a “GIFT of the Holy Spirit to the Body of Christ.” As we speak, there are thousands preparing for the ministry in seminaries across America who are not gifted for that role (IMO).
Every church is a religious institution, but not necessarily the Bride of Christ. Most churches have ‘the’ Church embedded in it … real-deal believers who are outnumbered by the counterfeit church around them. On TWW, we are “hostile” (critical of) churches (not the Body of Christ) which use and abuse.
Churches can be harlots, but never the Body of Christ. It’s a counterfeit causing all the problems, not the genuine.
I think it’s a pick and choose thing which can vary from person to person.
That’s because we could tell they weren’t praying for us. Now look at hundreds of millions of lonely christians and billions of frightened women and boys.
I had a pastor outright tell me that the church is a harlot (he used another word). I tend to agree. Jesus had some offensive words for the religious leaders.
I have a friend whose church leaders won’t meet for an exit interview.
Muff Potter,
All well and good unless and until the Scripture literalism is combined with power for overreach with others: silencing their voices, taking their money, taking their time and talents, discipline of adults, directing others’ lives, violating their children, subverting women, privileging men, claiming women, leveraging their resources, etc.
Back in the day, we signed and joined our church with a contract to be moral (no substance abuse or cheating on the spouse). Regarding money, the idea was that sometimes a working person can donate but other times the worker needs to feed their family.
Nowadays church contracts require money and secrets (NDAs) to shelter the Dear Leader from scrutiny or oversight while he does “god’s work” … however Dear Leader defines that.
Illegitimate authority … buyer beware
Ava Aaronson,
Agreed.
This. Exactly why my husband and I left our last church without discussing with the pastor or staff. Our own and others’ prior experience had shown that concerns raised would be met with misdirection, deception or outright dismissal. We had reason to believe that nothing we said would be heard, and nothing we were told would be trustworthy. With that level of mistrust, attempts at sincere communication become an exercise in accelerating one’s cranium towards a hard vertical surface.
Yet I am supposed to give them my hard earned greenbacks.. and they get offended when I ask!! It is quite shocking, actually…
And the most common subject in the Didache, taking up a third of the book?
HOW TO SPOT A CON MAN IN THE PULPIT.
Many of whom associate the name of Christ with the Abuse they suffered.
To the point the name “Jesus Christ” packs the exact same baggage as the name “Adolf Hitler”.
“And they call Lord Shardik… The God of the Child Slavers!”
— Richard Adams, Shardik (fantasy novel)
Before I had turned 25 I had left three…
Christians often find this impossible to accept. They might believe the survivor, but then go straight to “why would you blame Jesus?”
When people are abused in the name of Jesus, they might very well blame Jesus, along with the institution and the perpetrator. When we answer them by focusing on the virtues of Jesus, we forget all about the victim standing there in the flesh.
Dear Leader of one of my former churches told the congregation that he wasn’t going to provide care for them because they hadn’t financially supported his ministry. It was a surprise to them – their pastor was misappropriating funds.
When abuse occurs, there are ostensibly three entities present, the abuser, the victim, and god/Jesus/Holy Spirit.
The bible is replete with miracles and god talking to people, and god smiting people, burning bushes, blind seeing, lame walking etc.
And while the abuse continues, god sits back and apparently watches. If justice comes, it’s through the actions of people, not deities.
I can see why some folks would lose faith.
Narcissists want the MOST loyalty, influence, admiration, etc. coupled with the LEAST amount of accountability (preferably zero). Watch out for covenants that stress obedience and submission to the leaders yet provide zero accountability from the congregation. “Elder-rule” church government coupled with a membership covenant almost guarantees the leaders are unsafe people because the result is absolute power for the leaders (and usually absolute power for the “first among equals”) and zero for you plus the omnipresent covert threat of church discipline and isolation from the community if you offer anything but perfect submission.
Dr. Les Carter’s “Surviving Narcissism” channel on YouTube and Dr. George Simon’s “In Sheep’s Clothing” are helpful resources.
Paul K,
That’s institionalised codependency. They’ve got to make us do it because someone made them do it, and belief and prayer don’t exist any more, therefore there is no Holy Spirit.
Codependent ad hominem religion is lustful possession. Those creeps are no longer capable of exercising righteous anger against their own bad parents / mentors.
They’d think you were an “Ancient Aliens” fan. If you really want to offend them, tell them that “he”, “his”, “man”, etc. can refer to both sexes.
You Said Da Sekrit Woid.
Here’ Alternate History Hub’s hilarious take on Ancient Aliens:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDq8vQ0t67A
Another example of Over-Spritualizing.
To the point they become so Spiritual they cease to be Real.
Headless Unicorn Guy,
God’s an atheist * because He doesn’t believe the twaddle that’s talked about Him. The voice of God is in the cry of the innocent. { * “I Am not as other gods”. }